Standing Room Only for Sunday 8 August 2021

12:10 Polynesian Panthers series looks back to look forward 

While it's taken 14 years to bring to the screen, the the release is timely for TVNZ's new series about the Polynesian Panther Party that fought for the rights of the Pacific Island and Māori communities at a time of increasing racial-targeting from the Government and Police Force.

The Panthers is set in 1974, three years after a group of young Polynesian street-gangsters and university students who'd formed a revolutionary movement group. The Party sought to protect the Polynesian community from racial discrimination, prejudice and social inequality.

Lynn speaks to Halaifonua Finau and to co-producer Crystal Vaega. 

12:30 Pork & Poll Taxes 

In the latest era of heightened racism against Asians around the world, a group of Auckland theatre makers hope a new play will remind audiences of a time when Chinese in New Zealand were heavily persecuted.

Talia Pua's play Pork & Poll Taxes centres on a Chinese family torn apart by the need for a man who's a husband and father to earn money by working in the market gardens of New Gold Mountain - or Aotearoa. When he decides to stay despite the crippling Chinese Poll Tax and mounting racial tensions and insists his wife join him, it creates huge ructions. Lynn Freeman talks to director Talia Pua and cast member Anna Lee.

12.45 Ellen Burstyn dons the entertainment triple crown 

American actress Ellen Burstyn has won the rare Triple Crown of Acting - an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony. Her best known film roles include Chris MacNeil in The Exorcist, Sara in  Requiem for a Dream and her Academy award winning role of Alice in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Her Tony Award was for Same Time, Next Year, and Ellen's Emmy is for her guest starring role on Law and Order: SVU. At the moment she's starring in a comedy/drama called Queen Bees about her character Helen, a widow offered a second chance at love after moving into a retirement community. She's also filming an HBO series about America's First Ladies, and hit the headlines recently when it was announced she is to appear in a new "Exorcist" trilogy.

1:10 At The Movies

Dan Slevin is filling in for Simon Morris and watches three new films in cinemas and at home. He reviews the gritty New Zealand drama The Justice of Bunny King; Jungle Cruise, an adventure inspired by one Disneyland’s oldest and best loved attractions; and The Misfits, a high energy crime caper starring Pierce Brosnan.

1:35 Art Laureate Harry Culy 

Wellington photographer Harry Culy  is fascinated with the kinds of things the rest of us wouldn't even notice - weeds breaking through cement, cracks in surfaces and isolated spaces.

His darkly evocative body of work that falls between documentary and art photography, has won him the 2021 Marti Friedlander Photographic Award in this weekend's announcement of the 2021 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureates. 

Harry's camera of choice is a large 4 x 5" field film camera  so it takes him time to set up a shot and every photo counts. He also runs a small press photobook company called Bad News Books.

1:50 Jeanine Clarkin: Te Aho Tapu Hou

Fashion designer Jeanine Clarkin has been at the forefront of Aotearoa's design world since 1994. She burst onto the scene with a brand of fashion celebrating Māori street wear, Tā moko, korowai and indiginous plants and animals. 

She's been non stop since and her collections remain deeply rooted in matauranga māori. 

Her work is featuring at Te Whare Taonga o Waikato,  Waikato Museum, in a huge retrospective titled Te Aho Tapu Hou, The New Sacred Thread.

2:06 The Laugh Track - Jack Buchanan 

Actor and musician Jack Buchanan has had a big pandemic year. 

Covid-19 restrictions meant he couldn't tread the boards as per normal, but a chance lockdown idea to get his family dancing on camera led to viral success with Family Lockdown Boogie. He's allowed back out to actual shows again now and is appearing in Live Live Cinema - Night of the living Dead at Silo Theatre in Auckland. 

2:25 Sapphic Lake swans on stage 

It's Swan Lake reimagined for the 21st century -  Sapphic Lake is believed to be the first ballet in New Zealand to depict a story focused on lesbian and non binary love. It's creators see it as challenging an old form to embrace modern ideas and allowing queer ballet dancers to perform their own stories.

Two key creatives involved with this new Nonbinary Lesbian Ballet are co-creator Ania Upstill and choreographer and former Royal New Zealand Ballet dancer Brigid Costello 

2:40 New Cli-Fi novel imagines a world on fire 

Novelist and non fiction writer Jillian Webster didn't mean to start writing climate fiction, bit it arrived in her life at pace. She's just published her second climate fiction novel The Burn of a Thousand Suns and is returning to her protagonist Maia. Maia begins the series in Aotearoa but is trying to make her way to the other end of the world, to a city in what used to be the arctic circle where life is still possible. 

She's navigating a world ravaged by climate change, creating horrifying worlds to pass through, ghosts of places we would recognise now. Cli-Fi is becoming more and more common for writers exploring the limits of human endurance and cruelty, and Jillian's story is no exception. Rob Kelly sat down with Jillian and asked her why this world had sprung into her mind. 

2:49 Coffee art hits the capital 

There's a use for coffee you might not know about - it can be used to develop film instead of the traditional blend of chemicals. Dunedin interdisciplinary artist Christopher Schmelz uses coffee derivitave caffenol to develop negatives of photographs - ideally in a public space like a cafe so staff and customers can have their pictures taken then see negatives being processed, hung up to dry, and the finished portrait. He's bringing his Caffenol cafe to the capital as part of an residency at the Pyramid Club.

3:06 Drama at 3 - Attitude 

Today's Classic Drama is Attitude by Sturat Hoar. It stars Paul McLaughlin and was recorded on location in Ōtautahi Christchurch.